FDR's New Deal v. Obamanomics

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By Stephen Lendman (about the author) Page 1 of 11 page(s)

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FDR'S New Deal v. Obamanomics in Their First 100 Days - by Stephen Lendman

With good reason, progressive economists reflect positively on Roosevelt's New Deal even though:

-- it failed to end the Great Depression;

-- had many flaws;

-- did too little for blacks, women, immigrants, small farmers, agricultural workers, and the poor;

-- let blacks be persecuted, discriminated against, and in the South denied their voting rights and lynched;

-- 10 weeks after Pearl Harbor, he signed an Executive Order interning loyal Japanese American citizens because of their ethnicity; smaller numbers of German and Italian Americans as well;

-- despite popular discontent with US broadcasting, he signed the 1934 Communications Act establishing permanent broadcasting law that handed the public airwaves to entrenched interests and laid the foundation for today's corrupted media; he called it a "New Deal in Radio Law," indeed for the broadcasters that profited;

-- his main task was to save capitalism, not remake America into a social democracy beyond what was necessary at the time;

-- like all elected officials, Roosevelt was above all a politician who wanted to be re-elected; and

-- it took a world war to restore prosperity.

Nonetheless, his achievements were impressive, and the differences between then and now are stark - during the two gravest economic periods in US history. Obama embraces the Money Trust. Roosevelt, rhetorically at least, confronted "the unscrupulous money changers."

The problem is what he did, how, what he didn't do; what he could have done better; and if he had, maybe the Great Depression might not have been as Great or, in fact, Great at all.

He failed to do what Jackson and Lincoln did - return money-creation power to the people, as the Constitution mandates, instead leaving it in private hands - the very "moneychangers" he denounced with the Federal Reserve atop its pyramid.

Rather than finance New Deal programs with interest-free money, he chose debt obligations to private bankers, left the Fed's power unchanged, and turned deep recessionary years into the Great Depression.

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I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.

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